They therefore determined to strike; but before they could make the necessary arrangements William set out for Flanders; and the plot against his life was necessarily suspended till his return.
It was on the twelfth of May that the King left Kensington for Gravesend, where he proposed to embark for the Continent.

Three days before his departure the Parliament of Scotland had, after a recess of about two years, met again at Edinburgh.

Hamilton, who had, in the preceding session, sate on the throne and held the sceptre, was dead; and it was necessary to find a new Lord High Commissioner.

The person selected was John Hay, Marquess of Tweedale, Chancellor of the Realm, a man grown old in business, well informed, prudent, humane, blameless in private life, and, on the whole, as respectable as any Scottish lord who had been long and deeply concerned in the politics of those troubled times.
His task was not without difficulty.

It was indeed well known that the Estates were generally inclined to support the government.